Just His Charity Case

In Seattle, a quiet bistro owner serves only one dish and waits for an old friend who hates cilantro. Elsewhere, Nora has been loved for eight years by Roman and Sloane, who lifted her from a childhood of cruelty and made her feel like family. On her twenty-third birthday, at a party above the city, she overhears them confess a love for each other and call her a stray kitten they only pitied. Unable to confront the two people who gave her everything, Nora decides to disappear. She finds a polar research post at the edge of the world and applies, choosing a fifteen-year silence as her penance and rebirth.